Scroll to the bottom and click "Edit Options". In the bottom left of the popup under "Number of friends", enter "5000" to see more recent updates in your feed.

If you want to filter by only status updates, click the Friends tab on the left column. Then hit Friends > Status Updates.
Facebook is trying to build a better social experience for you, but it's hard to embrace change. It sucks that you have to "hack" your user experience though.
The greater challenge is trying to filter out all that noise :)